The Cost of Knowing, page 12
But this time, it’s Talia.
Talia: ¿Soy asquerosa para ti?
Is she what to me?
“Uh, Isaiah, hold on one second, okay?”
He shrugs, leans back onto my bed, and stares at the ceiling. I take to my translator app to search the word “asquerosa,” and the translation confuses me immediately. Disgusting, it says. That can’t be what she asked me.
Am I disgusting to you?
I type.
Me: Why would you think that?
Talia: That’s not a no.
I roll my eyes.
Me: No. You’re beautiful.
She’s more than beautiful. She’s a dream.
Me: I’ve never seen eyes like yours. And your hair.
What do I even say about her hair? It’s so loud and bright. It’s perfect. It’s her. She’s typing again, and my heart begins to race again, unnaturally fast. Come on, Alex, not another panic attack. Not now. She’s typing again.
Talia: Are you doing this because I’m size 14?
Oh no. Oh no, no, I get it now.
Me: No. I promise that’s not it. It’s not you. You’re perfect.
Talia: I want to be close to you. I want you to come over.
Fuck.
Me: Me too. I’m just not ready, okay?
Talia: Are you scared?
Yeah. I am. But not scared of what she thinks.
Me: No.
Talia: Why won’t you just tell me what’s wrong?
I try to blink away the nervousness. It doesn’t work. My phone vibrates again, and this time, Scoop’s name pops up on my screen.
Scoop: Alex? Don’t leave me hanging here.
Jesus Christ, my head is spinning. I can’t handle all these messages. Isaiah starts talking again.
“Did you ever notice Dad had a scar under his chin?”
I try to gather my thoughts.
“No,” I say. “What scar?”
“You wouldn’t see it unless you were looking for it. He got it in a skiing accident when he and Mom were dating.”
“I… didn’t even know Dad skied.”
“Neither did Mom until he did his first run.” He smiles. “He flew down the mountain trying to show off and hit a patch of ice. Busted his chin open.”
“Our dad?”
Me: I’m sorry I’m complicated.
Talia: I’m sorry I like you so much it scares you.
I sigh. My phone buzzes again.
Scoop: Alex?
I look up at Isaiah, who’s silent again, staring up at the ceiling, lost in his own thoughts. His words from earlier echo in my head. Do you ever feel like the world is screaming at you? His eyes are fluttering back and forth, and I wonder what he’s thinking, what the world is screaming at him. And then it hits me. The only time I’ve seen him happy—genuinely joyful—is when he’s quoting Shiv. It’s the only time I’ve seen him where the world isn’t screaming at him. It’s him playing BeatBall. It’s him always wearing his headphones. Music. That’s what silences the screaming. And that’s when it hits me.
Maybe that’s it! Maybe the answer to this curse is doing something that brings us joy even if it means facing what scares us most? I… guess that could be a concert? With all those crowds…
Just thinking about it ties a knot in my stomach. Isaiah would have to be around all those people with all their regrets, and I would have to be around all those people and all those… surfaces. I think about it. A brush against someone’s hand here, a touch of a wristband there, it’s fine for most people. But not for me. It’s a fear I really don’t want to face, which means it should work for getting rid of the curse, right? Especially this concert, since the money I’d have to use for the tickets would have to come from…
Mrs. Gomez.
I quickly navigate to my bank account and find that my paycheck just went through. Four hundred and twenty-five dollars and twelve cents sit in my account. There’s a pending nine-dollar Scoop’s charge from Talia’s and my ice cream yesterday, but otherwise, that’s accurate. If I buy two tickets for a hundred and fifty each, I’ll have a hundred and sixteen left.
That’s not nearly as much as I usually send Mrs. Gomez.
Maybe I’ve been doing it out of guilt. Maybe I’ve been doing it because it makes me feel like I have some control over the aftermath of my inaction that day. Maybe I’ve been doing it because I know I can’t replace Shaun, but maybe I can replace his paycheck. Every month, before I do anything else with my money, as much as I can possibly stand gets sent directly to Talia’s mother. She hates it, I know. And she’d never tell Talia about it. But eventually, I convinced her to let me. It was better than letting her get evicted, or worse.
“Thank you,” she said to me that day, with tears in her eyes. “Alex, you’ve grown up into an incredible young man. I’m glad Shaun got a chance to know you while he was here. God bless you.”
Normally it’s something presentable, around two hundred on average. What else would I spend it on, anyway? Aunt Mackie already pays for everything. I’ve already paid off my car. I have food, clothes, and tons of other comforts around here. I can’t let Talia and Mrs. Gomez suffer while I’m over here sitting pretty, but this month, it’s going to have to be far less than she’s used to. For Isaiah’s sake. I make the transfer. An even hundred. I can only hope it’s enough.
I know what I’ll do. I’ll send the rest from my next paycheck in a couple of weeks. She should be okay, right? I’ll ask Aunt Mackie for extra groceries when we go to the store next and send Talia home with a bag, no matter how much she protests.
My dad’s words ring in my head. I can picture his face as vividly as if he were sitting in front of me, across the kitchen table.
A man’s not a man without his paycheck.
Maria is counting on me. Talia is counting on me. I can’t just spend every dime I have on concert tickets, even if it would be Isaiah’s last. I take a long, deep breath and weigh my options. I can either buy the tickets, go to work to make up the money, and hope Isaiah is alive long enough to make it to the concert, or I can pay Maria this money and possibly miss out on the thing that would make Isaiah the happiest.
I’ll text Maria tomorrow to apologize.
After work.
It’s only opening, after all. What’s an hour helping Scoop open the store if it lets me keep my job? Isaiah should be okay for an hour, right? I’ll ask Talia to stay at the house and keep an eye on him. I’ll probably be back before he even wakes up. Scoop texts me right on cue.
Scoop: I’ll take your silence as a no.
Time’s up, Alex.
Me: I’ll come in.
God, I hope I’m doing the right thing.
Scoop: Yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you. See you at 10.
I hear Isaiah’s voice in my ears again.
“Who’re you texting?”
“Almost done,” I promise. “Sorry. One sec.”
I reread the last message from Talia. I’m sorry I like you so much it scares you.
Me: Talia, come over again tomorrow, okay? We’ll talk.
Talia: I don’t want to talk.
Me: Well, I do, because I care about you.
Those little dots pop up, then disappear, then pop up, then disappear. I stare at the phone, waiting. The moments go by, then the minutes. Finally Isaiah’s sigh breaks the silence of the room.
“Are you done yet?” he asks.
I toss my phone on the bed next to me. I have to hope she’ll reply eventually. For now, I have a dying little brother who wants my attention. I wear what I hope is my most believable happy face, lean forward with my elbows on my knees, and look at him. He’s still lying in corpse pose on the bed, staring at the ceiling, until he notices I’m looking at him. He bolts upright and smiles.
“Finally,” he says. “What did Talia say?”
“How’d you know it was Talia?”
He shrugs. “Just a feeling.”
I remember our conversation from earlier, how she looked at me in the kitchen and said, I think Isaiah can make his own pizza bites.
“Exactly how much do you ‘feel’?”
Laughter bubbles out of him.
“Wasn’t my power this time. Just a hunch. And I can’t feel that much,” he says with an eye roll. Then he grins. “Why? Were you talking about… sex?” He drags out the word sehhhhhx so much. Why does he have to make everything so freaking weird?
“Do you even know what sex is?” As soon as I’ve asked it, I regret it. “Y’know what? Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll explain it. You see, when two people love each other very much—”
“Isaiah, stop it—”
“They come together,” he says, interlacing his fingers and shimmying his shoulders, “in a special hug—”
“Isaiah,” I snap.
“You know, if you’d just tell me my future,” he says, “I might stop talking.”
I narrow my eyes. He’s gone from negotiating with me to threatening me. He has no idea what he’s asking me to do.
“Isaiah—”
“And then,” he says, standing up and balling his hands into fists, “they take their privates—”
“Man, stop!”
“And then…” He yanks his fists back against his waist and thrusts his hips forward. “Oh yeah!”
I jump off the chair.
“Okay, never do that again.”
“You gonna tell me?” he asks, plopping back down on the bed, folding his arms and smiling up at me. He knows he’s won. But maybe I can play along. Of course, I can’t tell him what’s actually going to happen, so I put all my chips into outsmarting him. I clear my throat and sit back down in the chair, careful not to touch it with my hands.
“I don’t need to touch your hand,” I say. “Remember the other night when you fell asleep on the couch and woke up in your room? I carried you there. I saw your whole future then.”
Aunt Mackie carried him.
“Oh yeah?” he asks. “What’s it say then?”
He doesn’t believe me. I’m going to have to work extra hard to make this sound believable.
“Well, it says that tomorrow you’ll have pizza bites for lunch.”
Isaiah rolls his eyes and purses his lips.
“Wow, man, that’s deep. Tell me the stuff I care about.”
“You don’t care about pizza bites?” I ask.
“Oh no, pizza bites are my entire life now, but what happens when I get older? Where do I go to college? Who do I marry? Do I have kids?”
“Why do you care about such big life questions anyway? You’re twelve.”
He gets quiet for a long time, staring down at his feet swinging off the edge of my bed, and his shoulders slump a bit. I wonder if I’ve struck a nerve so tender he’s not going to answer, and then he surprises me.
“I care because all I really hear about is the past. I’ve seen some shit, man. I see what happened to Mom and Dad, over and over. I know about our ancestors. You know we used to be kings?”
Kings? One of my eyebrows goes up.
“Kings, man?” I ask. “As in, crown and scepter and subjects and shit?”
“Nah, as in face paint, hair beads, and scents worn by royalty in our tribe.”
I pause and stare at him. Is he talking about our ancestors… that far back? In Africa?
“Whoa, whoa, wait,” I begin. “So… you’ve seen four hundred years in the past? In visions?”
He nods determinedly at me.
“Every generation since our family got these powers.”
“Whoa, wait, our family?” I ask. I try to decide if I want to know the answer to what I’m about to ask. Do I really want to know this? “Did… did Mom and Dad have these powers?”
“Just Dad,” he says. “He knew he was going to die.”
I freeze. My chest gets tight. My head starts feeling like it’s being clamped in a vise.
“Dad… knew?”
Isaiah nods.
“He could see the future too. Just by being around people he cared about.”
Dad knew.
He knew.
And he got into that car anyway.
“Why did he get in the car then?”
Isaiah sighs. “He won’t tell me. And I’ve asked. Several times.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell you something like that?”
“No idea,” he says, so matter-of-factly it unsettles me. “But he told me he knew. He knew we’d get these powers too. He saw visions of us with them, and he wanted to stop it before it got to us.”
I swallow the lump in my throat.
“So, do you want to know how we got them?” he asks.
I sigh.
Do I ever.
I clear my throat and begin.
“You go to college at Sutton University,” I begin, launching myself into the hardest string of lies I’ve ever had to think up. “You get a full-ride scholarship. You don’t get married until you’re thirty—”
Isaiah audibly sucks his teeth at that part, and I can’t help but smile. Little dude is actually looking forward to getting married. And then it hits me all over again. It’s not real. It’s an illusion. Isaiah doesn’t get married. Isaiah doesn’t go to college. Isaiah doesn’t make it past this weekend.
“Is that enough?” I ask, praying so hard that it is.
“What’s her name?” he asks, his feet swinging a little harder. “Is she pretty?”
I stare at him and nod.
“She’s fine, man. She’s a ten.”
“Yes!” he exclaims. “What’s her name?”
“M-Mandy.”
First name I thought of.
His nose wrinkles.
“Mandy?” he asks. “Isn’t that an old-lady name?”
I laugh. My school librarian’s name is Mandy.
“ ‘Old’ is a relative word, isn’t it?” I ask him. “Now, keep your end of the deal. How’d we get stuck with these powers? And do you have any idea how we might get rid of them?”
“Well,” he says, cracking all ten of his knuckles and flopping his head back and forth to crack his neck, “it started four hundred years ago, in West Cameroon. We belonged to the Unguzi tribe, one of the largest groups to settle along the Wouri River. King Takaa was a young king, but he was wise. He knew how to listen, and it served him well. The Unguzi were the best fighters, but they only fought in defense. But one summer a drought came, and the Unguzi were running out of water. King Takaa prayed to the orisha of water, Osun, to give them rain, but none came. One day the neighboring Anaka tribe invaded in search of water that might be in stores in the Unguzi tribe. Takaa insisted they had no water, but the leader of the Anaka didn’t believe him. He rained down violence on the Unguzi mercilessly. The fighting was so bad, Takaa had to join the fight himself. When the leader of the Anaka ran him through with a spear, he looked to the sky and called on the orisha of the afterlife to grant him life again. He said he wanted to live. The orisha asked how he wanted to live. He thought about the battlefield, about his fear of death, and how it made him ashamed. He felt like a coward. He answered the orisha, ‘To live without fear,’ and then he just had to get greedy. He asked to be able to ‘see what cannot be seen’ and ‘know the unknowable.’ The orisha granted him his wish. But it wasn’t anything like what he expected.”
I gulp, and I have to ask, “How do you know all this?”
“Great-Great-Grandpa Buddy is buried in Elginwood, you know. He had regrets too. And one of them was not asking his great-great-great-great-great-etc.-grandfather more questions about what happened in his village. I got curious one day and sat there next to him, just listening. He told me all he already knew.”
So Isaiah can hear the regrets of the dead. The regrets of our dead.
“So Takaa is our great-great-great—”
“Who’s telling this story? Me or you?”
I smile and fold my arms as he continues.
“Takaa lived, and he suffered. Everything he loved showed its true colors. He could see everything for what it really was. He saw every molecule in every drop of water he drank. He saw every bacterium his body killed, and every bug he stepped on underfoot. He saw every consequence of his actions that before had gone unnoticed. Knowing more didn’t help him. It made it worse. He lived in guilt. He hated life. And eventually, he jumped off a mountain, never to be seen or heard from again.”
I realize my back has been tensing this whole time, and I clear my throat and roll my shoulders.
“Shit, man,” I say. “Those are some… heavy origins. That’s why we have these powers? Because of something our ancestor did four hundred years ago?”
Isaiah nods and shrugs.
“Sucks, don’t it?” he asks.
“It’s some bullshit,” I say. I would’ve been cool with the first part of Takaa’s wish. The to live without fear part. “We shouldn’t have to live with what happened to Takaa. We didn’t even know him. We didn’t ask for what he wanted. Why do we have to live with this?”
“Because the world remembers what he asked for. What happened to our ancestors is still punishing us, too. In more ways than one.”
“Is there a way to get rid of this shit then? Do we have to… like… ask the orishas or something?”
He shrugs.
“I don’t know if I want to get rid of mine. It sucks sometimes, but I also like hearing it sometimes, you know?” he asks. “I like hearing Mom and Dad. I don’t want to lose them all over again.”
A pang of guilt hits me.
“Yeah, I guess I get that. But I don’t want to constantly be seeing the future, either. I’d get rid of this in a heartbeat. I didn’t even call them powers until I heard about yours. I called it a curse. Feels more like a curse anyway.”
“Maybe yours does.”
“Yours does too, from what you’ve told me. At least sometimes.”
“At least you can do something with yours. At least you can use yours to prepare for what’s about to happen. You get warnings. You get time to brace yourself for what’s coming. I just get reminded of what I could’ve done better in the past. What’s the point of that?” he asks.
“So you don’t make the same mistakes over and over.”
He lies back down on the bed and stares at the ceiling again.
